Vigilance and Tranquility, Honesty and awareness

Month: May 2008

10 swaying vacuums (you exhale fully and press the stomach inward and sway on your feet in different ways to better feel the spine and controlling it (10 heart beats count))

10 stuck pipes (you inhale fully but keep the stomach straight and work to push the air out as you close the throat for the same count)

30 pelvic floor breaths (you pull up the pelvic floor muscle as you inhale and relax)

Breathing through the body (10 heart beat count, you match a step per heart beat and work to feel each organ, breath through it and feel the pulse as you move and keep the arms up as you do the upper body)

15 minutes density and freedom of movement using the stick (focus on alignment and movement awareness in any position starting by doing the 4 basics with the stick in the 2 classical positions (neck and back) and than density in the arms and mobility)

10 minutesfluid movement using the ground, rolling, and the chain together

5 minuteswhip myself to learn to deal with and redirect tension and pain and fear

10minutes edged tools work and shadow fighting against many

Douse

Pray!

Good afternoon!

Breath pyramid as high as possible

Pray!

Good evening!

2-4-6-8-10 of the 4 basic drills focusing on prolonging the breath phases (for example you do 4 push ups on the inhale and follow immediately with 4 push ups on the exhale and follow immediately with 4 push ups holding my breath)

100 breaths hanging from the bar to unlimber the spine

120 breaths as I hold my ankles with my hands and twist and turn on the ground to release and become aware of tension

30 Jesus pose (lie on the ground with your legs straight and your arms to the sides) leg raises to the opposite hand . 30 on the back and 30 on the stomach

Stand or sit on your knees under a door frame or post and place your hand one side of the door frame. Now turn as if you want to pass under the arm on the door and relax forward keeping your breath swift to exhale the tension that is brought up in this way and your feet relaxed on the ground. After you do this a few times it will relax and open your shoulders and it feels good after a long stay in one pose with the shoulders forward or with the neck looking up as you lie down. You can do this drill in many ways as long as you keep the goal or direction positive. Remember that a goal has an end and a direction has not. It can be both good and bad.
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A slight change in your feet will mean a great change overall. Start working with this by lifting one foot’s fingers up as you squat and than raise the heel. Play with the direction of the fingers and notice how they effect your knees and hips. Don’t forget to breathe.

Sometimes a little more awareness can bring you to a higher level of work even if it is more uncomfortable.
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Take a stick and place it under your chin. Press it up with both elbow pockets reaching up and squat slowly up and down. Walk a little on the bottm and notice how you align yourself differently than before. Relax your eyes and your alignment in standing and walking and in between will relax more.
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Take a regular broomstick or a regular staff and place one end on a desk at your hip level or on a chair in a way that it doesn’t move too much. Place the other end on your shoulder and through movement from the hip (take a step with your whole body and avoid getting stuck in your steps) move it from shoulder to shoulder. Make sure you still see as much as you can around you and avoid looking down as a way of letting things slide off you. Next slide the stick to your elbow pocket and go from elbow to neck to the other side without stop a few times. Move to the wrist and keep the hand and fingers relaxed and at the best position for you to keep the stick at each second (note that very small movement in the angle of the wrist and the rest can result in great changes in the end. for example if you want to escape a hand holding your wrist start by making it uncomfortable for the hand to keep holding by changing the angle of the wrist by moving the elbow under or to the side of the hand and so on)
Once you do this do the same drill facing away from the chair or whatever is holding the other end of the stick.

Now place one end of the stick in the corner of a wall or in a small whole in the ground and place the other end at the pocket between your thigh and the hip. Move it from side to side and than move it to the thigh itself. Move it again from side to side keeping your breathing smooth and your eyes relaxed and than move to the ankles. Again watch the small changes in the angles and tension you can use to move this imbalance around and repeat this drill facing away from the wall/whole.

We stand upright to spend the least amount of energy to keep our posture and navigate with ease and also to keep our senses (eyes, ears etc) in the best way to receive new information. When you are pushing or pulling or resisting those forces you align yourself along a greater force than gravity and that is of your muscles (for a while at least). Consider a wall or a post and try to push it over. You will notice your body aligning itself along the direction of the force you want to manifest into movement and the same goes for pulling. Work either alone using a wall and a door frame or a tree in the woods on pulling and pushing and note for yourself how you align yourself and at which point you start to lose the benefit of your senses compared to the aligned position. With a partner you can have push pull drills as you resist or not and work after you feel how you move when you resist to blend with the push pull and escape through this. For a more realistic view of things you can add a trunk of a car as the position to bring the partner to.

Notice that in hitting we do not push or push in most cases unless we aim to stop the person. In hitting we move our limbs or anything else into the area of the hit and than it goes deep in. Think about it and practice. Your own expeirence is worth much more than any learned by reading when you need it.
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1. Relax your eyes and broaden the scope to the sides. Do the same to the up and down and in the start you can help yourself broaden the scope of your sight by tracking your fingers moving as you move your hands to the sides of the head or up and down.

2. Maintain 1 and feel your pulse in your chest or throat and spread the feel of the pulse to the entire body.

3. maintain 1 and 2 and note where in your body you feel more heat and where you feel more tension and work till you cover your entire outer shell. (being aware to the heat in the outer shell is a start to controlling your body temperature)
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Have a partner press with both hands on your head downward and as you align and relax under the pressure, hit him as you walk and move in front of him and note that if you are relaxed and move as one than his arms will not move from your hits. Take this as a way to learn to move unnoticed and efficient and under pressure and do the same for your partner.

Have a partner lie on the ground and balance your stick on his body in the push up position. Now walk the stick up and down (avoid the throat in most cases) for your relaxation and entertainment. Remember to place or position hard on soft and soft on hard because at the end of a few of these you will know.
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Take a number between 30 to 50 and do 1 push up, 1 sit up. 1 leg raise, 1 squat that number of times. The purpose of the drill is to move from drill to drill with efficient and relaxed movement and pay extra attention to the neck and head so you learn to relax your body while working. The effect and benefit will be much greater than doing them all in repetition in terms of movement development.

Another drill to consider is to stand with your arms outstretched in various ways and moving with tension in the arms and have a partner hit the arms with a stick so you learn to relax the shoulder and rest of the body so the rest of the body is not affected. This is a good drill to teach relaxation during strikes fast. The striker learns that hitting the soft with hard (muscles with stick) is more effective and less destructive than other work (most of the time)

To stay warm and comfortable in the woods at night you can do many things. If you can build a small fire and know how to control and direct the heat that is good but sometimes you cannot do this. For example if you are looking for something to keep you warm at night, first look for what is already there: an open shelter, a tree that fell in a way that shelters and is small enough to keep the body heat etcetera. You can also go the other way and dig a little bit under a log to make a small shelter and gather small branches and leaves to make a heat barrier. It is the trapped air which insulates and keeps the heat near you so even if the material is wet it can still work if you have a nylon or something like it around you. If you have a car than you can sleep in it but even there make the space smaller using a coat and papers crumpled up. If you want to move about and you don’t have a good coat or a blanket to wrap around you, you can panel your shirt with leaves which will create an air trap and keep your body heat from escaping. Wind is one of the best things if you want to cool yourself but avoid it if you need to conserve energy.
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